Laundry service generally is provided by means of a single system: one or more fixed drop off and pickup locations (dry cleaners or stores) which in turn have or supply a laundry cleaning facility. In operation, dirty laundry which is dropped off by customers coming to the dry cleaning stores is sent to the laundry cleaning facility, returned, and then the customers return to the stores to pick up their cleaned laundry.
Only a few variations exist. One common variation is hotel laundry service, in which the customer checks into a hotel and while there, can simply have the hotel take care of getting the laundry cleaned. In practice, the hotel actually usually sends the laundry out to a traditional laundry system anyway, though the laundry system may go as far as providing pickup from the hotel.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,974,077, issued Dec. 13, 2005 in the name of Beyder et al teaches a laundry and mobile business related invention. In the '077 patent, a truck is parked at a location other than a laundry store, thus allowing customers to visit the truck and drop off or pick up their laundry according to a regular schedule. Thus the truck functions as a “part time” laundry pick up and drop off facility which is able to move to several different locations. The truck is provided with a laundry scale and an invoice generator (printer).
The '077 patent teaches away from the present invention. First of all, there is teaching in the '077 patent that the truck should park in single location and customers should come to the truck. In the present invention, the contrary is true: the truck will come to the customers. Secondly the truck of the '077 patent operates on a regular and fixed schedule, for example fixed laundry return times when customers can find the truck parked in its regular location. Chaos and unhappy customers would result if the truck were absent from these fixed locations at times customers believed they could pick up their laundry. In the present invention, the contrary is true: the truck moves about flexibly in response to specific customer requests and customers do not attempt to go find the truck. For these reasons, the '077 patent teaches away from the present invention and cannot be combined with other references in any attempt to use the present disclosure as a template.
In addition to teaching away from the present invention, the '077 patent furthermore lacks any reference to a network of similar vehicles, lacks any reference to mobile networking devices, lacks any reference to specialized mobile laundry modules, lacks any reference to providing pickup and drop off services at locations and times of customer choice, lacks any reference to a mobile app for customer requests, lacks any reference to an online presence for customer requests, lacks flexible territories, and lacks any reference to specialized laundry conveyors or bridges to fixed installations.
The '077 reference may have a cargo compartment but clearly lacks any hanging laundry compartment within the cargo compartment, apertures, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,494,896 to DiFranco teaches a garment truck. The garment truck of the '896 reference may have a cargo compartment but definitely and explicitly teaches AWAY from hanging laundry compartments hanging inside of the cargo compartment: the reference instead teaches bars across the cargo compartment.
US Patent application 20020004703 to Gaspard II teaches a hybrid passenger and freight transport vehicle similar to a long distance bus and a flatbed truck. It does not teach toward the transformation of a product (laundry) as the present invention teaches. It also, as all the prior art, does not teach a hanging laundry compartment.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,072,082 to McDonough teaches a meat truck. As is knowns in meat trucks, large meat hooks (a specific type of large strong hook having a very sharp point and lacking any aperture) are used to hang animal carcasses. It does not teach any laundry related structures or steps.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,297,071 to Dunbar teaches a truck for hauling extremely heavy vehicle scale test weights. These weights are so heavy that they dominate the structure of the vehicle and it's movable crane. These structures for the handling of very durable half ton weights teach nothing toward or relevant to laundry service.
It is worth noting that conveyors for laundry can be used to make hanging and handling of laundry much simpler than handling it piece by piece, or just hanging it from a simple bar. There are a few laundry delivery vehicles which have bars, however, these bars are simple cylindrical bars which are supported at the ends by the walls of the truck they are mounted in, that is, the bars are similar to the bars in a typical home closet. Thus known trucks have bars across from side to side or even from front to back, which bars are supported by walls, not the ceiling. Such bars lack means of restraining the laundry from sliding along the bar during truck motions. Such bars also lack means of moving/handling the laundry automatically.
Nothing in the prior art teaches that laundry service may be provided at the customer's location, with a specified pickup and drop-off appointment time, for the transformation of the physical laundry (from dirty to clean, from unpressed to pressed, torn to fixed, alterations made, etc.). Nothing in the prior art teaches that laundry trucks may have special hanging compartments within their cargo compartments and so on and so forth.
It would be preferable to provide a distributed laundry system having mobilized store equivalents, including real laundry conveyors in the trucks, a specialized distributed computer network in the trucks to handle the circumstances of mobile laundry operations, procedures and operations which allow the trucks to cooperate to provide pickup and drop off services at locations of the customers' choices (such as at home or work), including flexible territories for the trucks, customer user interfaces on mobile devices such as cell phones, mobile computing devices and the like, and so on.